Rozell, Matthew - The Things Our Fathers Saw 05 - D-Day and Beyond: The Things Our Fathers Saw by Rozell Matthew

Author:Rozell, Matthew [Rozell, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-09-29T04:00:00+00:00

The ‘Suicide Navy’

[Later] on Utah Beach on June 19, a big storm stirred up a lot of mines. As we were coming in our lookout yelled, ‘Stop engines! Wreckage in the water, dead ahead!’ We slowed and stopped. Apparently, there was an LCT that had been hit earlier and it was lying there. Had we gone another 25 or 30 feet, we would have been impaled, practically stuck on the thing—so we couldn't move. We reversed and motioned for the LST in line behind us to go around us. When they went around us, and as they made that move alongside, they blew right in half; they struck a mine. Now try to picture a huge structure like an LST, 327 feet long, welded steel, 50 feet wide, blowing in two, [lifting out of the water and straight up into the air]. The crew aboard it had a motley assortment of pets. They had pigeons, and chickens—what the hell would you have a chicken onboard for?—chickens, and dogs and cats; this was strictly forbidden, but they let them get away with it. Just before, we had been waving to the guys and laughing at the animals. We were the ‘Suicide Navy,’ they called us. A very apropos title.

There were medical teams assigned to all the landing ships, like the LSTs, and they were composed of one or two naval doctors and a team of corpsmen. We had a surgical operating station in the back of the tank section, it was a complete operating room and they operated on the wounded there. At times we'd go back to eat, and we'd set our trays down in the dining room. They'd operate on the tables there, and our trays would slide in the blood—well, you don’t feel much like eating after that.

We started out low, the fellows of the 175th took off with the trucks and the anti-tank guns. They didn't cast one eye towards the human barbecue—that’s what I call it, that's what it was. They looked the other way; unbeknownst to them they were heading into a bad battle with the Germans at Saint-Lô. The [German] 352nd Infantry Division wasn't supposed to be there, but it was, and it hit them.

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